Fermented food products contain various useful bacteria, including lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Various strains of LAB are used in the manufacture of fermented foods, including milk, bread, vegetables, and other edible plant materials. LAB is a group of Gram-positive bacteria generally used in the production of fermented foods. The benefits of LAB in dietary and clinical applications have been widely studied. LAB have been utilized as fermenting agents for the preservation of food taking benefit of a low pH and the action of fermentation products generated during the fermentative activity thereof to inhibit the growth of spoilage bacteria. To this end, LAB have been used for preparing a variety of different foodstuff such as cheese, yogurt and other fermented dairy products from milk. It has attracted a great deal of attention in that LAB have been found to exhibit valuable properties to man and animals upon ingestion. In particular, specific strains of the genus Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium have been found to be able to colonize the intestinal mucosa and to assist in the maintenance of the well-being of man and animal. Anti-inflammatory activity and the immunomodulatory activity are well-known characteristic of LAB.
WO 97/00078 discloses a specific strain, named as Lactobacillus GG (ATCC 53103), which is a probiotic. The microorganism in WO 97/00078 is particularly employed in a method of preventing or treating food induced hypersensitivity reactions. U.S. Pat. No. 8,361,481 provides a lactic acid bacterium having an anti-allergic activity, which is a lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus paracasei K71 strain which has been internationally deposited in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, International Patent Organism Depositary under Accession No. FERM BP-11098. L. Zhang et al. reports the effect of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in decreasing inflammation (Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 45-52, 2006). Also, several prior art references have reported that Lactic acid bacteria inhibit proinflammatory cytokine expression (for example, World Journal of Gastroenterology, vol. 16, no. 33, pp. 4145-4151, 2010; and International Immunopharmacology, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 574-580, 2008).
The growth metabolic products of Lactobacillus plantarum KFCC11389P inhibited the production of TNF-α and IL-6 in LPS-treated RAW 264.7 cells. Lactobacillus plantarum 10hk2 has been shown to exhibit immunomodulatory effects by increasing the production of pro-inflammatory mediators, such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6 and TNF-α, and the anti-inflammatory mediator interleukin-10 (IL-10) in RAW 264.7 cells.
However, the effectiveness of LAB is variable due to the properties and capabilities of different strains. Therefore, there is a need to develop a LAB with advantageous immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory activity.